


Reconstruction

by Molly



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-31
Updated: 2010-07-31
Packaged: 2017-10-10 21:14:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/104355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Molly/pseuds/Molly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>It's best for both of them if he's a ghost: a guy who never stayed, and one day never came back.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Reconstruction

It takes three months for Lisa to leave him, and the only thing Dean finds surprising is that she waited so long. He's not planning to tell Sam right away, because Sam would feel responsible, and there's a whole long list of crap Sam should feel guilty about before he gets around to Dean's love life. Stuff like insisting on squatting in an abandoned warehouse instead of shelling out for a motel for the past week's work. Like snoring so loud it sounds like he's got a microphone hidden in his shirt somewhere. Like washing a load of whites yesterday and somehow missing every pair of socks and underwear Dean owns. Stuff for which he actually deserves Dean's epic, righteous anger.

Lisa, though. That's all on Dean, and he knows it. She's done with him because he's not done with the job, pure and simple. He can't blame her for not wanting to spend God knows how long wondering if he's alive or dead; if he didn't call because he's hurt, or because he just fucking forgot. Again.

It's the road, it's the job, it's Sam -- Hell, it's even the goddamn car. All wrapped up together, it's his life -- this sorry, aimless, god-forsaken life that's always going to be what he wants more than anything else because it's been _his_ longer than anything else ever has. He had it right at the crossroads; he's no good for any life without Sam in it. That's not Sam's fault; it's just the way Dean's insides have always worked.

When she calls to tell him, he says, "Okay, yeah, I get it," and there's a pause where he knows he should be putting up a fight. But when he calls up her face in his memory, she's just staring at him with those amazing brown eyes. She's never smiling. That probably means something.

"Well," she says, "I guess--"

"What will you tell Ben?"

"I don't know. Something." Another long pause, and then her voice comes back stronger than it has been so far. "Something boring, to keep him from wanting to run off after you."

Dean nods. It makes sense. There's no way to make fighting monsters sound anything less than awesome. Even Dean, who of all people should know better, can't deny that. "Can I still see him?" he asks, because he can't not ask, even when he knows the answer. "Just... once in a while?"

"Can you promise me nothing's ever going to follow you back to him? Come after him because it can't get you?"

Dean can't promise anything. That's the problem. Can't promise them safety, because his life's not built for it. Can't promise he'll put them first, because that spot's been taken since Dean was four years old. It's best for both of them if he's a ghost: a guy who never stayed, and one day never came back.

"I guess not," he says, wiping at a weird little itch at the corner of his eye. "I'm sorry."

"I know you are, Dean," she says, and there's that kindness in her voice, that comfort he isn't going to get anymore. Doesn't really deserve. "Just take care of yourself out there. And don't worry. I'll tell him something good."

  


* * *

Dean snaps his cell phone shut just as Sam gets back to the car. He takes a cup of coffee and a bag of junk food off Sam's hands and lets him get settled, get the car started. Sam's driving more these days, kind of a nod to the whole equality routine. It's supposed to mean Dean trusts Sam more now. To Dean it just means he gets to take a lot more naps.

"Lisa?" Sam asks, and doesn't even pause for an answer. "They didn't have Twizzlers. Just some weird orange off-brand. I got you taffy."

"What kind?" Dean doesn't wait for an answer either, just peers into the bag. "Aww, banana? That stuff is foul, Sam."

Sam rolls his eyes. "Good, don't eat it. Maybe that way you won't end up on insulin shots before you hit forty."

Forty. Dean snorts, and unwraps a piece of candy. It smells like real bananas smell but tastes like banana-flavored ass. "You think I'll make forty, huh? That's sweet. After all the fucked up shit we've been through, you're still an optimist."

Sam gives him a dark look out of the corner of his eye. "You'll make forty," he says, and Dean is abruptly inclined to believe him. Somehow it comes out more like a threat than a promise.

Out on the road, the afternoon sun is behind them and the sky overhead is cartoon-sky blue. Dean cranks the window down and hooks an arm over the door, lets the wind rush up his sleeve. Sam turns the heat on to compensate, because he's the size of a small giant and still unable to maintain a stable body temperature.

"Where we headed?" Dean asks eventually. He doesn't much care, but he knows Sam still really likes to show off his research skills. Funny the things in a person that Hell can't kill.

"Thought you might want to swing through Cicero." Sam doesn't look at him, keeps his eyes front and center on the road, but there's a question in there, in case Dean feels like answering it. "Got a lead on a possible salt and burn just south of there. It's not far out of the way."

And the thing is, Dean does kind of want to. He wants to tell Lisa face to face that he's sorry, smell the mint shampoo she always uses one more time. He wants to see Ben so bad it's a physical sensation in his chest, a reaching out that's always going to be reaching, no matter where he goes. He wouldn't mind picking up his pillow, of all the stupid fucking things -- who knew it was possible to actually get attached to one in the first place?

But then there's Sam, who makes Dean sleep on solid rock and won't wash his underwear; who buys him bad taffy, and thinks sixty degrees in November is the start of a new ice age. He hasn't cut his hair once in the three months they've been back on the road together, and he forgets the sugar for Dean's coffee half the time. He won't talk about Hell, and he won't talk about Lucifer, and in spite of that he won't stop asking Dean deeply personal questions. He's a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside a pushy son of a bitch with no sense of personal boundaries, and he came back to life for Dean and brought Dean back to life in the process.

Sam's his brother. Maybe that shouldn't be the most important thing in or beyond this world, but it is.

Dean tosses his empty coffee cup into the back, sets the bag of candy on the seat between them, and slumps down as far as he comfortably can, short of kicking a hole in the floorboard. "Just find me a ghost and a motel," he says, "not necessarily in that order. I'm too old to sleep on concrete, and you're too tall to sleep in the car."

Sam just shrugs, and drives, and doesn't look at Dean; for once he doesn't ask any questions. He doesn't have to, which is both kind of the problem, and kind of the point to it all. He drives, and Dean doesn't mention the relieved tilt to Sam's mouth, and Sam doesn't mention Cicero again.

When they come to the point where Sam has to pick one road or another, he points the car toward the spook, like God and John Winchester intended.

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to torch, terrio and luzdeestrellas for beta duty!


End file.
